


Tuesday Again

by messageredacted



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 12:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Trickster is <i>a</i> god, not <i>the</i> God. The Lord could stop the Trickster if it was in His plan, but instead He wishes Castiel to do it. Castiel does not question His will, as mysterious as it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuesday Again

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written 23 January 2009.

When the businessman comes out of the diner, wiping strawberry syrup from his lips, Castiel is waiting for him.

“You have to stop,” he says.

The Trickster turns and walks down the sidewalk, swinging his briefcase. Inside the diner, a young man seems to be choking on a sausage. Castiel barely spares him a glance.

“ ‘Have to’?” drawls the Trickster. “Are you here to stop me?”

Castiel keeps pace with him. Pedestrians melt around them, letting them through. “I’m here to ask you,” he says.

The Trickster tips his head to the side and smiles. “It didn’t sound like a question.”

“Dean is important to us.”

“Dean is dead meat no matter how you look at it.” The Trickster waves a hand and reality shifts around them, the sidewalk melting into a white carpet. Walls spring up around them, a modern city apartment. If the trick is meant to unnerve Castiel, then the Trickster doesn’t know angels.

“Still, it’s important that you let them out of this…” He struggles to find the word. “Time loop.”

The Trickster strolls forward and drops onto a white leather couch, stretching his arms out across the back and kicking off his shoes. He’s still wearing the businessman, who grins at Castiel with a sly expression. “Important? But not enough that you actually have the power to stop me?”

There isn’t an answer to that that Castiel would like to give. He glances out the window and sees some city skyline, though he hasn’t been on Earth long enough to recognize which city it might be.

The Trickster is _a_ god, not _the_ God. The Lord could stop the Trickster if it was in His plan, but instead He wishes Castiel to do it. Castiel does not question His will, as mysterious as it is.

“I don’t want to force you to stop,” Castiel says, as if he has the power to do so. “I would like you to do so on your own.”

The Trickster studies him, looking calculating. “Have a seat,” he says, and some sort of recliner appears at Castiel’s thigh. Castiel doesn’t move or look down.

“No, thank you.”

The Trickster smiles. “Please. If you’re going to come here begging for a favor, the least you could do is pretend you enjoy my company.”

Castiel steps around the arm of the recliner and sits down. It is soft and luxurious. He rests his arms stiffly on the armrests. The body he is wearing is a thirty-year-old male with rheumatoid arthritis. Castiel could heal the arthritis if he wished, and in fact before he returns the body to its owner, he has every intention of doing so. But for now he lets it remain, so every time he moves it reminds him that he is currently human. At least, as close to human as he will ever get.

“Better,” the Trickster says dubiously. His face shifts, white hair shortening and turning light brown, his face smoothing into something younger. He abruptly leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re gonna have to explain to me why you even care. Dean Winchester sold his soul. I can let him go today, but he doesn’t have a lot of time left to be of help to you guys after this.”

“Are you going to keep them here forever?”

“Forever…” The Trickster waves a hand dismissively. “I’ll get bored before forever happens, I’m sure.”

“It’s not what happens before Dean’s deal that matters,” Castiel says, smoothing his pants over his knees. “It’s what happens after.”

“Have you got an insider’s perspective on the future there?” The Trickster is watching him with narrowed eyes, a small smile on his face. He looks interested now. “You have information on the bigger plan? Tell me. I’d like to know.”

“I don’t know the bigger plan. I know that Dean is important. That’s all that I can tell you.”

“You’re not one to ask questions, I’m sure.” The Trickster sounds amused and bitter at the same time. He leans back in the seat again, hands clasped at his crotch. “Well, what did I expect from an angel. Look, you haven’t given me any good reason for letting the Winchesters go besides ‘pretty please’. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

Castiel spreads his hands. “What do you want?”

The Trickster laughs out loud at that, tipping back his head. “Oh, what do I want. What do I want… There are so many things I could ask for, though I wonder if you could possibly give them to me. How about this?” He focuses on Castiel, his gaze intense. “I want you.”

Castiel glances down at his spread hands, frowning. “Want me?” he repeats. “Want what with me?”

The Trickster’s grin widens. “Oh, sweetie.” He pushes off the couch, standing up, and somehow he steps out of his body and into a female, a long-haired pretty thing in a cocktail dress. “Angels don’t come around very often. I want a taste.” She closes the distance between them, drops to her knees in front of the armchair and puts her hands on his knees, peering up into Castiel’s face.

Castiel sits back a little. “You want sex?”

“Such a simple word for what I want.” She grins, feral.

“You’ll let the Winchesters go?”

Her hand slides up inside of his thigh, fingernails tracing the inseam. “Afterwards.”

A simple word, yes, but not a simple act. Castiel hesitates. “I—” he says slowly. “Angels have no desires.”

Her hand stops most of the way up his thigh. Her eyes rise to his and a slow smile starts to creep across her face. “No desires?” she whispers. “Are you sure?”

##

Reality shifts.

Contrary to what the humans think, the Heaven of the angels is not a place of light and harps. It is not a place of sight or sound at all. With no physical form, angels have no eyes or ears; they simply exist, and the only sensation is the warmth of God. Like puppies, they wrestle and squirm to move closer to the warmth. Some of them can get close enough to understand God’s will, and those are the lucky ones, beloved of God.

Castiel has never been one of the lucky ones.

He is suddenly standing in a church. The Trickster is gone, at least as far as he can tell. There is no one around him, just the empty pews and the altar and the arching ceiling.

His wrists ache. Castiel looks down at his hands. His joints throb with the arthritis. He can feel the strangest sensation of sweat under his arms. The hairs on the back of his neck tickle against his collar. The fabric of his pants brushes his legs and he can feel every inch of it as if the top layer of deadened skin has been removed from his whole body and his flesh is suddenly new and raw. He can feel his heart pulsing in his neck; can taste the saliva in his mouth; can feel the air over his skin. He is human. He can _feel_.

And then he feels something else in his heart, something solid and certain and warm. He knows this feeling. He has fought for this feeling, struggled for millennia to get closer to this feeling. This is God’s love, right here, right _inside of him_. He doesn’t have to fight to get it. He doesn’t have to despair that he will never get close enough to feel it. It’s right here, inside of him, given freely. He doesn’t even need to ask.

Without his own volition, he falls to his knees. He can feel the jarring pain of his kneecaps hitting the wooden floor, and he relishes the feeling. He clasps his hands together, looks up at the stained glass rose window over the altar, at the crucifix hanging there.

“My Lord,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to say, but it doesn’t matter. God loves him, loves _him_ , Castiel. There is nothing he can do to express his incredible gratitude, his overwhelming love.

The light from the rose window increases. His eyes water and burn but he refuses to shut them. With the light, the warmth increases too. It floods around him, blotting out the church, blotting out everything except Castiel. He feels the heat on his skin, feels the warm breeze. He finally has to close his eyes but even there it presses through his eyelids, too bright to avoid.

A gentle hand touches his shoulder. He hears the soft shush of fabric as someone crouches next to him where he kneels. Another hand closes over his clasped hands.

“My son,” murmurs a voice.

Castiel opens his eyes.

##

The apartment slams back around him. His shirt is soaked through with sweat and somehow he has come off the armchair and is kneeling on the ground, trembling. The Trickster is curled up on the floor next to him, male again, catching his breath, eyes half-lidded. He reaches out and cups Castiel’s chin, lips parted.

“There,” he whispers. “You can have your Winchester boys back.”


End file.
